Defence

AFSOC flight crew inspect the armament of the first AC-130J Ghostrider gunship to arrive at Hurlburt Field in Florida. The air force expects to field 32 such aircraft once deliveries are complete. Source: US Air Force

Four Russian MiG-31 interceptors are shadowed by UK Typhoon fighters over the Baltic on 24 July. NATO has been dealing with record number of Russian military flights in the region over recent days. Source: Crown Copyright

The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) took its sole heavy landing ship out of service during a decommissioning ceremony on 31 July.
In service for nearly 35 years, HMAS Tobruk supported missions in Somalia, East Timor, and the Solomon Islands and conducted "extensive work both in Australia and

India's state-owned Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) has launched the 17th Aadesh-class fast patrol vessel on order for the Indian Coast Guard (ICG), the company announced on 30 July.
The 50 m vessel was laid on 11 June and has been named ICGS Arush . CSL was awarded an INR15 billion (USD234 million)

A multi-purpose transport and landing ship being built for the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) has been launched at Damen's Halong Shipyard in Vietnam, the company announced in a release on 30 July.
The vessel, which Damen refers to as the RoRo 5612, is being supplied as part of the RBDF's

A senior government official has called on the Indonesian Navy (Tentara Nasional Indonesia - Angkatan Laut, or TNI-AL) to accelerate work on its Palu naval base located in Central Sulawesi in anticipation of the service's first new Type 209/1200 Chang Bogo-class diesel-electric submarine (SSK).
The

The US Department of Defense is planning to contract Lockheed Martin to conduct radar cross-section (RCS) testing on the F-35 Lightning II "to assess a weapon system and its effect on aircraft performance".
This notice of intent from the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) did not specify any

FEATURED REPORT

Australia's Air Warfare Destroyer programme has been blighted by schedule slippage, cost escalation, and dysfunctional management. Julian Kerr finds out how and why plans have gone awry, and looks at the efforts to put Project SEA 4000 back on an even keel

With Asia-Pacific countries increasingly looking to develop their defence industrial capabilities through offset, the demands being placed on foreign contractors are rising to an unprecedented level. Jon Grevatt reports

The US Air Force's Special Operations Command (AFSOC) has received the first of 37 Lockheed Martin AC-130J Ghostrider gunships, it was announced on 30 July.
The aircraft arrived at Hurlburt Field in Florida the day prior to the announcement, ahead of initial developmental test and evaluation

The last eight of 34 Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) Gepard 1A2 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns (SPAAGs) are scheduled to depart from Germany in the first week of August and arrive in Rio de Janeiro 20 days later, a source told IHS Jane's on 27 July.
The Gepards were procured from Germany by the

Key Points
DARPA has awarded Boeing USD6.6 million to continue work on the XS-1 Experimental Spaceplane
The agency plans to hold a Phase II competition among the three teams working on the project next year for the follow-on production order
The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects

The United States will have to spend USD348 billion on nuclear weapons modernisation over the next 10 years if it wants to maintain a triad of nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarines, and bomber aircraft, according to a 22 January report from the Congressional Budget

Fleetlist
Programmes: The Pattugliatore Polivalente d'Altura (PPA) programme is for a class of six multipurpose offshore patrol vessels, with an option for a further four ships. Five are to be in a low-end configuration (patrol) and one in high-end configuration (combat). A modular design approach

Development
Zeman's mine resistant boots are designed to provide leg protection against Anti-Personnel (AP) mines containing up to 35 g (AM-35 type) and 50 g (AM-50 type) high explosives (TNT) and have been developed by Zeman in cooperation with Aall Jiri Chladek explosives consultants (see

Type
Penetration warhead.
Development
In 1994 Britain's Royal Ordnance (later BAE Systems Royal Ordnance Defence, BAE Systems Land and Armaments and now BAE Global Combat Systems Munitions) released details of a new penetrating tandem warhead concept suitable for both bombs and air-to-surface